The market for daily coupon services in Japan has developed into a a two-horse race in the last few months: Groupon Japan is leading the market with an estimated $18.6 million in sales in April this year against Recruit’s Ponpare, which racked up $14.5 million in the same month (according to daily coupon search service CP4U).
Both Groupon Japan and Ponpare have been trying to aggressively acquire users since their inception. Groupon has been flooding the entire Japanese web with display ads for months, while Ponpare resorted to methods like offering 500 Yen McDonalds coupons for 100 Yen, all just to add as many members as possible.
And now Groupon Japan is taking this one step further: everybody who registers for the service through this page can download a PC game worth 3,980 Yen (US$50) for free.
Needless to say the game (an action RPG called “Ys: The Ark of Napishtim”) has absolutely nothing do to with what Groupon usually offers but is just a user acquisition play.Tip: if you’re able to register in Japanese but want to play the game itself in English, visit this page for a language patch.
The Ys Groupon campaign started today and runs until June 30. Another Ys game, Ys Origin (which is also worth US$50), can be downloaded for free only today (if you register).
Groupon has been offering software as free downloads for quite some time now (just like Ponpare), but as far as we can see the Ys games boast the biggest value so far.
Serkan Toto